


The Obligatory Victorian AU

by TheLivingFacepalm



Category: Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, F/F, Historical Inaccuracy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, also hair/clothing in the victorian era is stumping me, another stumper is that madison and artemis don't necessarily dress masculinely or femininely, anyways these tags are really long may delete some of em, apologies if some of these tags don't make sense anymore, bc i feel like connor creek is fairly middle class, bc it's kinda hard converting wgftue into this whole victorian setting, but like was there a middle class?, future facepalm here: turns out some of the tags have been deleted, haha I spent way to much time basically redoing my fourth grade social studies, i mean i'm 100 per cent a pantser author but this fic is legit awakening the inner plotter, i think, like madison certain leans a bit to the masculine side imo but they're still pretty androgynous, no beta we die like odie-doty, oh shoot I mean "they" but I didn't want to rewrite the whole tag, ok i looked it up it was the 1830s to very early 1900s, okay so ive noticed a few historical inaccuracies, otherwise they're mostly higher lower class or middle class, so basically it happened about a generation or less before the official california rush, so now they're second gen, so yes yeah this takes place some time between 1850-something and 1890-something, that last tag is there because it's bound to happen, the victorian era i mean, then the first generation would have moved to california earlier, there will be more, wait how did we go from history to the american class sytem, wow ok m o o d, yes you saw that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28788468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLivingFacepalm/pseuds/TheLivingFacepalm
Summary: After a slow progression of plot convenient events and situations, twin journalists--I mean detectives, psh, don't be suspicious of them they're detectives--, Artemis and Paul, end up doing an articl---er....an investigation, on a relatively recently founded town, Connor Creek. The whole thing goes wayward (heh...wayward), and soon enough there's more than just a political dispute that they're investigating in this town, and far more than just a small acquaintance between Artemis and Madison.
Relationships: Madison Reynolds/Artemis Schue-Horyn
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7





	1. Michael, a Horse, One With the Night

To the general knowledge Connor Creek, werewolves were a thing of myth. A silly tale, akin to that of London's spring-heeled jack. The only difference between the infamous wall-crawling murderer, and werewolves, was that Jack was a recent concept. One that had only just recently been conceptualized towards the beginning of the century, and only had roots in recent ghost sitings.

But werewolves were far different from just a recent urban myth. Werewolves had been reported since humanity's first societies, or at least creatures similar to the werewolf. Werewolves were based on the instinctual distrust in people. A distrust that could lead to even distrusting friends and family. A distrust that could lead to death and pain and terror.

Currently, none of this mattered to Artemis and Paul Schue-Horyn. What they were concerned about was a place to stay in a town they had decided to investigate, and perhaps a bit of what in particular they were investigating. Over the last months they'd begun receiving mail from a small-town politician going by the name of Ryan Reynolds, who claimed to have received numerous death threats. But again, nothing (besides Connor Creek and Ryan Reynolds) that involved what would happen in the following week or two, had so much as considered crossing their minds. Instead these thoughts were busy doing things, like being gay. Indeed, some of these thoughts were in fact rather gay.

They had set out after a long train ride, and then took a carriage (carriage is spelled kinda weird did I just write "cabbage" anyways it's not like a cinderella type thing more just a chill little horse-drawn t h i n g), but after a supposed "emergency" were left stranded on an empty and slightly foreboding dust road. They had no directions, and chose to just follow the road until they found some form of civilization.

"...well I thought it was a rather fascinating concept," Paul finished a somewhat chaotic monologue on the concept of deeper meanings behind the half-century old book, Frankenstein. "What did you think?"

Artemis looked up from kicking a pebble about the road, "I didn't read it."

"Oh. Really? You tend to have a fondness for book," Paul looked slightly disappointed, and instead chose to observe the trees.

The awkward silence was broken when a galloping horse approached on the road.

Out of sheer panic, Paul, who was walking ahead of Artemis, threw himself back and away from the horse, subsequently replacing Artemis in her place. Artemis, unaware of what was happening, was lightly nudged ahead by Paul's sudden panic, and although it was a light nudge, was enough for her to loose her balance and land to the side of the horse.

This would generally be considered kind of ass-like of Paul, but it's hard to blame him with the knowledge of the fact that a literal horse was coming directly at him.

No matter how it happened (or the morals of how it happened), Artemis was left looking up directly at the rider of the horse. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the new point of view. It was afternoon, the sun was an hour away from setting, and the perspective left her directly under the person who was riding the horse, and now getting off of the horse.

"Are you alright?" the rider asked, now helping Artemis up.

"I'm fine. Thank you," Artemis said, dusting off her skirt.

The rider took notice to this, and commented, "Oh. It's a shame about your dress. It was pretty too. Of the little I saw of it. Very nice for such a simple daytime dress."

Artemis, rendered incapable of responding to this flattery, instead chose to not respond at all, leading to a silence.

It, the silence I mean, ended when the rider said, "I'm Madison."

"Artemis."

Madison blinked, "Pardon?"

Artemis laughed, only a little, which was a rare sight even so, and said, "Artemis is my name. I've been getting 'Pardon's and 'hm?'s my whole life, though. So don't worry. I know it's an irregular name. It's a goddess."

"A goddess?!" Madison seemed very thrown off by this statement, but at the same time fascinated and excited by it, "That's really interesting! I...I'm named after the last name of a president. Not very interesting my name."

"No! Very interesting actually," Artemis corrected the other, "I'd nearly forgotten of the fourth president until you brought it up."

Paul helped himself up, and dusting himself off, tried to receive either of their attention, not in a narcissistic way, but in a 'hey, we actually have more important things going on than our names', "Wow real shame about my...my suit as well, huh? Yeah....it was pretty too y'know!"

Madison and Artemis continued discussing names.

"Good looking suit, it was!" Paul continued. He thought for a moment, then said, "That damn horse ruined it!"

This seemed to have gotten Madison's attention. "What did you say about my Michael?! Did you insult Michael?!"

"Is Michael the horse?" Paul asked.

"Yes."

Paul glanced at the horse, then at Madison, then nervously said, "N-no. I didn't insult Michael. Michael is a....a darling horse. Very strong boy, Michael is."

"That's what I thought," Madison said. "Speaking of, you two need a ride?"

Paul had never rode a horse in his life, so he was very excited about the concept. "Yeah!"

Artemis hadn't ridden a horse before either, but she never really saw the appeal. What's so special about sitting on a horse that's so walking? "We're heading to Connor Creek. Know the place?"

"Know it?" Madison asked, "I lived it. I grew up there, I was born there, I live there now, I once ate really gross pasta there. Yeah. I know it. So I suppose I could give the two of you a ride. I can only take you one at a time. Who'd like to go first, then?"

Paul's hand shot up as if he were in school again, eagerly awaiting the chance to answer that one math problem that no classmate could understand. "Me! I can take the luggage too!"

Madison nodded and helped Paul(and the luggage) on the horse and turned to Artemis. "Can you wait an hour?"

"I can wait," Artemis reassured her.

***

By the time Madison had come back for Artemis, the sun was setting, and Artemis had begun uncomfortably sitting and napping on the ground.

"Wake up!" Madison lightly shook Artemis, who awoke immediately. "We'd better set out now. It's getting pretty late."

Artemis yawned and got up to the horse. She struggled at first to get on after Madison had oh so perfectly hopped atop Michael, sliding off the side of the horse every time she'd made an attempt. Still, she insisted on helping herself up, and after a fifth try, she was sitting on the horse. Was she regretting the fact she was wearing a dress because dresses always make it harder to sit on horses and usually instead sitting to the side? Yes. In fact, she was slightly jealous of Madison's hunting outfit, with a relatively flexible skirt, and a warm jacket above a blouse.

The ride was surprisingly calm. It reminded Artemis of one night when she was young where she and her mother had gone out to see a production of Hamlet. The play lasted long enough, and had started late enough, for it to feel like three in the morning to Artemis' kid brain. She'd drifted off in her bed that night with 'to be or not to be' still echoing in her mind. At some point along that horse ride with Madison, Artemis must have genuinely drifted off (which is weird, I feel like this fic has lots of sleeping in it probably because I'm currently staying up late writing fanfiction instead of sleeping and wishing that insomnia didn't exist) Madison keeping one arm awkwardly curling around Artemis to keep her safely on top of Michael the Horse.

Artemis woke a few minutes before they got to Connor Creek.

Madison was aware of Artemis awaking, but didn't say anything. She was oddly afraid of what would happen if she said something. Like maybe Artemis just wanted silence.

This was proven wrong, when Artemis said, "So what's Connor Creek like?"

"It's nice," Madison said, "We can we a bit...queer, sure, but we're still kind good people."

Madison proceeded to rant about every person who was currently living in Connor Creek. It was apparently a small town, so it was easy for her to know everyone there.

"Los Angeles isn't nearly as interesting," Artemis sighed, "Paul is the only person I actually trust in Los Angeles. Everyone else is a stranger. Even my neighbors. There was one lady, Rebecca. She was nice I suppose. A coworker. And Lesley, my boss. Outside of work it's kinda hard to know anyone. Big cities like those are just that, big cities. Big and strange and foreign in a sense."

"Connor Creek is nice, you'll like it," Madison said. Although she wasn't facing Artemis, Artemis could still tell that she was smiling.

When they finally got to Connor Creek, it was dark. Already though, Artemis could see the window of the hotel on, with the silhoutte of her brother already unpacking.

"Well, here we are," Madison said, hopping off, with Artemis finally accepting her help with getting down. She set a hand on Artemis' shoulder and pointed towards the bar, "Your hotel room is right above that bar over there."

"Above 'The Dead Canary'?" Artemis asked, doubting the statement.

"Yep. The one with the light in the window on," Madison said. She removed her hand from Artemis' shoulder, which Artemis didn't like all that much, and jumped back atop Michael. "Good night, Artemis!"

Artemis nodded, and waved as Madison began riding off, "Good night."


	2. A Bunch of Hooey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Artemis and Paul's investigations continue and the question of werewolves first arises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahaha. I....uh. I was listening to music with my friends on a server while writing this and....my friends really like some of dat like "cursed meme" type music. Like Missing Cat. or Two Trucks. Just...real cray stuff my man, so if this chapters a bit looser and goofier, don't @ me. @ my friends' weird discord server. Also I decided "screw it this ain't gonna be a slow burn" so we'll see how this goes ;). Speaking of winky faces I threw in a few references to some things see if you can catch 'em ;). Anyways I been having trouble coming up with what happens next bc I'm a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Paul and Artemis had completely different opinions when it came to sleep.

Paul wanted to sleep in late every night with the only exception being new years.

Artemis was both an early bird and a night owl. One could say she was a little-sleep-but-still-functioning-parrot.

This generally hadn't been an issue before. Maybe there'd be a bit of a time gap in the morning for Artemis, and the occasional shortage of caffeinated drinks, but it was fine.

Currently, it was not fine. At four in the morning, Artemis had poked at Paul with the spine of a book until he woke up, and now, at five, they were in front of the Dead Canary. Artemis was scanning their surroundings. Meanwhile, Paul was sitting on the ground half asleep mumbling something about 'then there was a tiger....and it was like in that book, but with a tiger....and the baby almost died...scary....don't worry the good looking fellow protected the baby, and someone else....ended tiger' and other half formed thoughts.

By six, they could hear, through the Dead Canary's thin walls Quinn ranting to Desmond about the quality of porridge, and Desmond nodding and saying 'yeah' 'mhm' because he'd already been through that conversation a couple dozen times and he'd rather not have it half an hour after waking up. And the first person to pass them, actually came jogging up to them.

"Hello, my name is Artemis," Artemis introduced herself to a man without any warning whatsoever.

"Okay," The man said, continuing to speed walk to the Dead Canary, "I'm Odie. Odie Doty."

"Er....hello, Odie, by the by, do you know anything about the town's election?" Artemis asked, nudging Paul, who mumbled 'yeah but...the ghost wasn't real....' as he pulled out a notepad and stubby pencil.

"Heard one of the candidates hasn't been heard of lately," Odie shrugged, "But that's it."

Just as Odie began turning away, stuffing a hand into a goofy satchel and pulling out a letter, Artemis stopped him, "Sorry...who's gone missing?"

"Reynolds," Odie said, "Hasn't been seen for half a day now."

"You realize that half a day is twelve hours right? You're saying people haven't seen him for twelve hours? You also realize that that is the equivalent to about a night?" Artemis politely (er...politely as possibly) said.

"Sorry, can't do much math. There ain't much of an education around here," Odie said, turning away.

"Not much education...." Artemis muttered to herself, turning to Paul, "Did you get all that down?"

Paul held up the notepad, confidently asking, "This look like I got all it down?"

Artemis leaned into the notepad, looking it up and down. After that she said with finality, "Half of the page is doodles of a guy with curly hair and a wonky hat."

"Oh, wrong page," Paul took the notepad and flipped through the worn pages.

While Paul was looking for the right page (if there was one), Artemis got distracted by Madison passing by.

"Hi," Artemis waved.

Madison's speedwalk (Artemis was starting to think everyone speedwalked in Connor Creek) slowed to a stop and she smiled at Artemis. Also technically at Paul, but Paul didn't notice because he was getting lost in thought about tigers again. "Hey, how are things Artemis?"

"Well, it's been less than a day, can't say much has changed," Artemis said.

For another solid three minutes, Artemis and Madison just talked, the way they had before, but no longer under the bright stars and blanket of silence, instead under sun rising in the sky and the distant chatter and noise of people beginning to wake up to another day.

///

The rest of the day mostly involved further aimlessness for the twins. A kind woman named Agnes talked to them about how nice Connor Creek was, they talked with a butcher called Vern who Paul seemed to quite like, further concern about Madison's brother arose, some lady tried to make them pay more than necessary for a seance (Paul made a snarky comment about this, something to do with a book he'd read about a murdered illusionist, although he still seemed to believe in all the seance and ghost stuff), a couple running one of those weird floral shop things seemed to think that the 'gossip' they had was the most intriguing and scandalous things of all time, and then they met a historian named Aubrey.

"My father was one of the founders," Aubrey informed them as he inspected one of his shelves and showed them about his archives.

"Why is there more than the usual amount of people for a house owned by one person?" Paul asked. Indeed, to the right there seemed to be more people than there should have been.

As in, there were people. Period.

For example, one figure sat in the corner, deeply invested in a collection of Plato's works. He was so invested in it, that his head was buried in the book (almost in a literal sense), and it was hard to see his face, but by the way he dressed and the little of his face that he could see (mostly his eyes, they could actually see his bespectacled eyes darting along the pages), it seemed pretty obvious they hadn't met him.

Ignoring slightly ominous possible ghost that was reading a Socratic debate between two people whose names were hard to pronounce, there was also Jeremiah (someone they'd run into earlier) (he was annoying but not enough to want to punch him), taking notes from a small copy of the bible, and the Walker couple giggling over drama in of Jane Eyre and whispering witty comments to each other.

"Ah," Aubrey nodded, "Well, my father's archives had begun to double as a library back in 1856 and now the...the archival part of my home is open to the general public from six am to six pm."

"You don't mind it?" Artemis asked.

"Oh, no, of course not!" Aubrey, "I'm just...happy to spread the gift of knowledge. There are some rules, of course, such as 'don't use the archives section without permission' 'don't check anything out or steal anything' 'don't damage books' et cetra et cetra et cetra. Besides, the town hasn't got much schooling anyways."

"Really?" Artemis said, "Well who'd have thought."

Paul, getting distracted, began to fidget with the books along the archives shelf, opening one with the enthralling title 'The Secrets of Connor Creek' and finding few pages, the only still legible one talking about werewolves.

A page in a forbidden book talking about werewolves being a page in a forbidden book talking about werewolves (and Paul being Paul), Paul began taking notes in his notepad while Artemis continued questioning Aubrey.

While he re-shelved the book, Aubrey took notice to, oh you know, a guest reading a book that's literally forbidden and contains incriminating information on certain Connor Creek residents, and rushed too stop Paul (who immediately hid his notepad in his pocket). "Don't look at that."

Paul looked slightly guilty as he said, "Well...it's a bit late now."

Behind Aubrey, Paul could see Artemis facepalm.

"Oh....er...." Aubrey blinked, "Don't believe any of it. It's a bunch of hooey."

"What's hooey?" Paul asked.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhh," Aubrey began, "rubbish. Absolute rubbish. Now, I'm sure you've go to go. You've got to do....uh....what exactly do you do?"

"We're jo-"

"Detectives," Artemis cut off her brother.

Paul nodded, "Right. Yeah. I uh....that's what I was saying. J....J.....Justifiable! Justifiable detectives."

"Oh....okay," Aubrey said. "Well, I'm sure you've got....justifiable detective-y things to get to, so you should be on your merry way."

"Justifiable detectives?" Artemis asked as they left, "Really?"

"Well," Paul said, "what's the whole detective thing about anyways?"

"If they know we're journalists they won't be as honest with us as they would have been," Artemis explained, "it's being undercover. Like that detective you love."

"It's different when Holmes does it," Paul mumbled, "It seems unethical now."

"Whatever, what 'hooey' did you find in that book?" Artemis asked. 

Paul opened his notepad and said, "You won't believe this, but it seemed to imply there are werewolves here. Seriously! Listen to this! 'The more reserved and secluded of families in Connor Creek are the ones least seen on nights of full moons, or nights in general, especially those under the surname Connor, Silver, M-'" 

"Werewolves?" Artemis interrupted for the umpteenth time that day, "Are you serious right now?" 

"Yes! Look! It says so!" Paul cried, pointing to his notes.

Artemis scoffed, but then scowled at the paper. "Fine. I'll keep it all in mind." 

/// 

"Where are you heading?" Paul asked, looking up from a sketch. They'd been hanging around in the Dead Canary for a while now, Artemis looking through notes and books she'd brought with her, and Paul switching between conjuring up creatures in his head and drawing said creatures. 

"Just...going out," Artemis shrugged. 

"Be careful," Paul warned, looking down at his dragon-tiger-human monstrosity sketch. 

It was late, leaving a building at that specific time and that specific time of year would feel like walking away from a fire into the North Pole.

Okay, that was an exaggeration, we are talking about California here, but it still felt like walking away from a fire. Just not into the North Pole. 

Nonetheless, Artemis very much wanted to go out that night. She and Madison had agreed to do a late night walk, for the fun of it. Kind of like a re-creation of the night they first met. 

She stood in front of the Dead Canary waiting for Madison, the way she had that morning. But when she saw Madison approaching, she didn't see a grinning face, the way she'd expected. Instead a somber one, just about ready to cry, even. 

Artemis rushed towards Madison, "What's wrong?" 

"Ryan is dead, Artemis," Madison said quietly, nearly in a whisper, "My brother is dead." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> iiiiisexual author trying their hardest to write and shouldn't be worried this much about the historical accuracy in one itty bitty gay fanfic for a webseries
> 
> ALSO WHY DO I WRITE THIS FIC LIKE AT THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT EVERY TIME LIKE WHAT.

**Author's Note:**

> haha, see what I did there? When Madison is describing Connor Creek? Get it? Like...'queer' as in strange bc it's the victorian era, but also 'queer' as in lgbt???? AHAHHAAHAH I'M FUNNY. anyways, time for the actual notes. You may have noticed there is no summary. That's because I have no idea wth I'm doing and idk how to write summaries. My last fic, which was a Clervalstein one shot, was just like "yeah there's victor and there's henry and they gay. boom my writing is bad" and so now I'm kinda scared to write summaries. Also, apologies if the tags are confusing, it deleted some of my tags. AO3 i mean. AO3 is "it" in this context. Basically I wanted the characters in the canon wgftue to NOT be the first generation of Connor Creek, even if it's just barely after the gold rush. Instead, I decided that they're the second generation of Connor Creek, presuming that the Silver Rush was a little bit prior to the California Gold rush. ALSO sorry if it's not really very clear that this is the victorian era. I have trouble with setting a specific time in my writing, especially in this sort of setting, so bare with me. It's a learning process, ok. aNyWayS. I hope you enjoyed. This *is* ongoing so be sure to revisit this later if you wanna read more of it! HAHAHAHHA IT'S ONE IN THE MORNING I NEED SLEEP


End file.
